I Only Speak American: Bank Holiday in the British Isles

Well… one “isle” – the Isle of Wight. But I believe it IS the largest of the aforementioned "isles". As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was our labor day. BANK HOLIDAY! I’m sure I missed a crazy weekend of partying in London. However, my friend Ashley’s boyfriend owns this mansion of a house on the Isle of Wight and invited me for the long weekend. You do not pass this up!!!

The front of the "Beechwood" house - designed to look like a New England seaside home

You get to the Isle by way of the city of Portsmouth.

Super cute town of Portsmouth

Then you have to take a boat of some kind to get there. My options were take the “rib” that Stefan has if the tides allow, take a hovercraft haha, or take a “fast cat” ferry-style boat. So on the way there Stefan and Ashley picked me up in their rib and brought me up to the backyard of their place. Holy moly man. This was what I had to deal with for 5 days! ;)

The back of the house facing the sea

Nice infinity swimming pool!

My room was the "green room" with an ensuite bathroom!

The first 2 days were just the three of us. Thursday was beautiful and spent lounging out by the amazing infinity pool.

At least you can tell I'm doing SOME studying here!

Thursday evening we went to go check out some Cricket game that was supposedly going on in the middle of the water because the tides were such that the water receded and you could stand on this sandy patch in the middle of the water!? I would say a Cricket match was a stretch... I think people just dressed up in uniforms and took pictures. It was definitely THE thing to do....

Not sure if you can see the commotion, but there are a bunch of players in the middle there.

Stefan is on the left and Ashley on the right. Pretty awesome boat ride out there. That is until I got completely SOAKED!

The town of Cowes (which was where the dock was) was super cute.

Friday Ashley and I went to a local pub in the evening for a few beers and heard a local musician (who was pretty good) play. I also was able to go on a run around the coastal paths, which were SO pretty.

I wish I could explain how peaceful this was. It was completely secluded from the main roads. I just sat here for 10 minutes listening to the waves lap up against the land.

There is an Abbey right down the street that I popped into (and actually returned to on Sunday for a proper mass along with monks chanting the prayers!). It was so cool to see a working monastery.

There were also gardens and farmland around that were really pretty.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday unfortunately did not behave so much with the weather. Typical English grey and drizzly weather. But on Saturday we were joined by Stefan’s sister and friend, and Sunday another friend. This was a good thing as Stefan’s favorite activity was to engage in debates with me about government, foreign policy and business. Ahem. Seriously?? I don’t remember the nitty gritty details of the Gulf War, but we spent about 30 minutes discussing it on Saturday….lol. I needed some lady allies.

Truthfully most of the weekend was spent relaxing and eating. I wish I would’ve taken photos of this, but Stefan is an insane gourmet chef. I volunteered to cook one night. He asked me what I cooked and essentially scoffed at my mention of good pasta. Let’s just say that my Italian pasta wouldn’t have stood up next to steak, roast lamb, shrimp cooked in a white wine sauce and goosefat potatoes. I think I gained a stone while I was there (the Brits refer to weight in stones, so I figure it only makes sense).

Sunday we also took the boat and jet skis out for a bit. I wish the weather would’ve behaved to be able to do it more because I LOVE being out on the water!